Software for designing dental restoration is today very common and is used as an alternative or addition to manual dental technician work. Recently jaw movement simulation modules have been added to such software. In particular virtual articulators, which represent physical articulators, have been included wherein the virtual designed dental model can be placed and the jaw movement simulated in an environment familiar to the dental technician.
However, many of these simulation modules do not have any easy ways to transfer patient specific settings relevant to jaw movement, such as the placement of the hinge axis relative to the jaw or the angle of condylar guidance. Currently these are primarily set based on average values and not patient specific evaluations.
Radiographic imaging, such as x-ray, is sometimes used to determine the position of the temporal mandibular joint (TMJ) and can be used to estimate the hinge axis. However, taking an x-ray is undesirable due to radiation exposure. Moreover, due to the radiation emitted radiographic imaging is usually only concentrated around the teeth of the jaw. If the TMJ is to be included, a larger area needs to be covered and the patient is accordingly exposed to a higher radiation dose.
Moreover, since 2D x-ray images are an image of superimposed structures as photons travel through the tissue it is very difficult to determine perspective and viewing angle of the generated 2D x-ray image.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a method not involving radiographic imaging or other expensive imaging techniques that simply and effectively can obtain patient specific information which can be used to simulate jaw movement in higher detail then known hitherto.